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Keith Moon Stole my Lipstick.
Keith Moon Stole My Lipstick - Judith Wills “A fascinating and intriguing journey through the 1970’s pop scene” “I honestly couldn’t put it down” “Beautifully captures those hip/happening times” “An elegy to childhood dreams and lost innocence” Were you ever a teenager trying to get to grips with the world around you? Have you heard of The Beatles, The Stones, The Doors, Queen, The Jackson Five, Slade? Were you around in the magical early pop days of the late 60’s and 70’s? Or did you ever wonder what it was REALLY like to be a part of that ‘fabulous’ era? If you can answer ‘yes’ to one or more of those questions – you will love this funny, fascinating and at times sad and touching true story. To read it is to find out much more than why Keith Moon stole the author’s lipstick. And it doesn’t even matter if you aren’t too sure who Mr Moon actually was. This is the tale of a star-struck, naïve misfit in the wrong clothes. A shy ‘country bumpkin’ who arrived in London at the tail-end of the Swinging Sixties and was soon living her own dream - as a writer on the UK’s leading (well, only) – pop magazine of the era. The author, Judith Wills, tells how, by some strange fluke, she landed the job of her wildest imaginings and began eight roller-coaster, eventful years of pop fan heaven – but it didn’t always turn out as she had imagined. Sometimes it was hell. Says Judith: “I was there, soon after the start of the cult of celebrity in all its forms. I was there at the start of mass hysteria for boy bands – the Monkees, Osmonds, Jackson Five, Bay City Rollers. Think of the biggest names the world of post-war music has ever produced – The Beatles, The Doors, The Stones, The Who, Queen – and I was there. From Jimi Hendrix and Joan Baez through to Slade and Marc Bolan, from the last breaths of festival hippiedom through to glamrock and bubblegum, I was there.” Which major rock star of the era – whose photos had adorned her bedroom walls from the age of 12 – did Wills befriend while she dated his brother? Which megastar – still world famous today – danced around her office and was so uninspiring she concluded he would NEVER be a success? Which massive American icon shared a joint with her at the Isle of Wight Festival? What top TV and film actor slipped through the net and went on to marry someone else? Why did Wills appear on stage at the Albert Hall with a Welsh singing legend? Which American singing TV star picked her up for lunch in his Roller and then fell asleep? Oh – and just why DID Keith Moon steal her lipstick? Wills answers all these posers in her sometimes hilarious book. But she has also written a detailed first-hand memoir of life, sex, fashion and culture in 60’s and 70’s London with a style that is a real page turner. Keith Moon Stole My Lipstick also gives an important and unique insight into how pop music – then and now – can offer a safe antidote to depression and loneliness. Flashbacks to the author’s own unhappy days of childhood and teens – during which pop, more than once she says, saved her life – appear throughout the book and help to explain why pop culture was, is, and always will be, so important to the young. ---- Return to Main Page... Return to UKA Bookshop... ----